What urban vegetation is for...number 8; It has concord with the identity of the place and is located in its biotic context

In this there is an important difference between architects and landscape architects. An architect might think of ‘place’ as something you create, design, build, build up. An LA, however, is more inclined to see a place as a pre-existing entity; somewhere with its own set of characteristics such as a microclimate, possibly a set of native species and hopefully a soil of some specific kind. It might have ancient road patterns, field boundaries, or geological quirks. To us, a place already has a spirit. These aspects of a place can’t really be fundamentally altered, even if we wanted to do so. So, when we design and when we build, we build across, but not with the aim of painting something new as if from a blank canvas – instead we aim to enhance, renew, enrich, regenerate. Landscape Urbanism takes this basis for our professional approach a step further, by embracing the aspects of a site that would previously have appeared to be its most intractable problems.

There are different ways in which designed vegetation structures can concord with the identity of a place. Of course you can use only species native to the spot, if that is what you want. Certainly this is the best way of ensuring plant survival and future health. On some sites, though, disturbance of soil structure and vegetation is so extreme that to try to design a way back through time to its pre-existing ‘natural’ state would be impossible and also pointless. Our job here is to piece together a reformed identity from the shreds of the old. What can guide us in this? For a start there are the pragmatic demands of the site; for remediation, shelter, flood alleviation, microclimate amelioration, energy or food production. All of these can be addressed in whole or part through vegetation.  Other prompts for the designer might come from more symbolic historical or cultural cues such as derelict structures or adjacent industry. Existing and past communities of people and animals can have their influence too, not just on gestures such as pieces of public art, but on fundamental vegetation structures – on new natures.